Raleigh County.,WV (WOAY) – In the past Raleigh County Volunteer Fire Departments were unable to respond to cardiac arrest calls unless they were a certified EMS professional, but recently that all has changed.

The 13 fire stations will now be able to save even more lives. One of the biggest causes for the expansion in their roles is due to the timeliness in responding to these dire calls.

Bobby Palmer Raleigh County Firefighter’s Association Secretary-Treasure adds, “So fire departments may very well be able to get there and there may be times where volunteer fire departments can get there within a couple of minutes to start that early CPR and dramatically increase the patients chance of survival.”

Once on a cardiac arrest call the firemen will now be able to begin helping with CPR procedures and proceed to use a heart shocking device named AED. The device takes roughly a minute to revive a person if their heart is failing. The volunteer stations have had AED since 2013 but it was initially used as a way to help prevent firemen from going into cardiac arrest while on the job.

Though this is a new procedure added onto the list of things the volunteers workers do it will require no new training. “They’re already required to have CPR-first-aid training so it’s no additional training they need,” says Palmer.

All the personnel at each of the 13 Raleigh County Volunteer Fire Departments are positive that this new program will help save even more lives.